SoundCloud updates Android app to infuse Material Design

SoundCloud took a bit of inspiration from Android’s Material Design with its latest update. It now supports Lollipop notifications and has rounded menus and a more spacious action bar. It also blurs out the background when you pause a song. Facebook integration has also been updated as well as French translation addition. A bug that stops stream paging prematurely has also been squashed as well as login crashes affecting some Samsung devices running Android 4.2.2.

Source: Android Police | Download: Google Play Store (Free)

CES 2015: Asus brings the same RAM capacity of your laptop to the ZenFone 2

The day has come that smartphones have caught up with laptops in terms of RAM capacity. Asus’s ZenFone 2 can carry up to 4GB of RAM. Aside from that, it is built with a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display, 64-bit 2.3GHz Super quad-core Intel Atom processor, dual SIM support, and a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front shooter. Connectivity options include 4G LTE (speeds up to 150Mbit/s) and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. It’ll run on Android 5.0 Lollipop with ZenUI skin layered on top.

The 2GB version of the ZenFone 2 retails for US$199 and will be available in March. No word yet on the price of the 4GB model. It will, of course, be more expensive but it can still be considered a steal with the specs of the device.

Source: Epoch Times

CES 2015: Sony introduces stainless steel version of SmartWatch 3

Sony is looking to make its SmartWatch 3 more fashionable with the latest iteration of the smartwatch. It now also has a stainless steel model, which gives it a more traditional watch feel to it. Its insides will remain the same though. It still has a 1.6-inch 320 x 320 transflective touch display, built-in GPS, IP68 certification, 4GB of flash memory, NFC capability, and microUSB charging. If you want to swap it with the original rubber straps, you can do so as well. The SmartWatch 3 will be available starting next month.

Source: PCPro

Bye-bye Google Wallet’s digital goods platform!

Just three years after it was first introduced, Google is shutting down the digital goods platform for Google Wallet. Because the browser-based payment system didn’t achieve the penetration for digital goods as they hoped, the digital goods API will be retired by March 2. They are telling developers to switch to a different payment platform before said date to avoid any hassle for their customers. Developers should also remove any references to Google Wallet on their sites.

Click to read more ...